Did anyone else feel dirty the other day? You know what day it was. It was Nov 22nd. Remember? The long awaited update to iOS 4.2(.1). See now you remember.
For iPad users, more power to you. You got the multitasking, the folders, the unified inbox and threaded mail. I have had that for a month with my iPhone 4. True, you did get left out in the cold when it came to the orientation lock being switched to a mute button, but really a small concession on your part to get all the other really great functions of iOS 4 (let me tell you, they are some really great functions). For the iPhone and iPod touch users who were already on iOS 4, we were salivating over two major functions of the new iOS: Airplay and Airprint.
I have mentioned before that Airplay will be the coup de gras for cable in my house. With the ability to watch web content on a television that was found on an iDevice would make cutting the cord so much easier for most people. Airprint was going to change how people interacted with printers. No more drivers to install (sorry to the Mac owners out there who may not know what I am talking about) and no more crazy reason to have to go to a companies website learn about how to use their printer.
And we got little of this. We actually got a small portion of what was expected.
Airplay has left me completely underwhelmed as of right now. I can only use it on a) the embedded YouTube app and b) the Videos app. So let me get his right, video I shoot on my iPhone can not be displayed on an AppleTV without syncing it to iTunes and then syncing it back to my phone? Really? Also, I can watch YouTube videos (which I could do on my Apple TV anyway) and my own purchased material (which I could do anyway). I thought it was a fault of the 3rd party app developers. They hadn’t setup the Airplay feature in their app yet, so that will be coming out soon. But then I noticed that it didn’t work for Safari, the built-in to the operating system browser. I would understand 3rd party apps because of licensing issues, but your own browser? Airprint got cut down to 11 printers, that you have to purchase. Not the printer you already own, but a printer that you have to purchase.
Come on Steve Jobs. At least tell us that is what you are doing. I took it on faith that you are trying to get a deal with NBC and CBS to rent their content through the iTunes store. I still bought the AppleTV because there is a lot of other functions I love about it. So right now, I am going to take it on faith that Airplay and AirPrint will both be expanded in future releases of iOS, but please make it soon.
*Note: I really do love the possibility of iOS 4.2, but I want more from it than what I was given.